I have used tube gear for many decades and always thought about buying a tube tester for the very reasons Elliot described. However, I’m not sure I would know how to use one correctly or even confirm it was calibrated. I’m sure some of us are old enough to remember going to the local pharmacy or supermarket with a bag of TV tubes Mother wanted tested.
Do clothes make the man?
This post is directed at all you golden oldies out there who are old enough, or in a rare case, educated well enough to be aware of the question the title asks.
I bought a used set of Quicksilver Horn Mono amps looking for some tube magic for my efficient speakers. I was less than impressed by what I heard. Let's just say the sound was as flat as a day old Doctor Pepper.
I changed the clothes on these little amps by installing a new set of Chinese made Svetlana El34. Omg, I now have a new man in front of me. The sound is what I expected originally, but it was totally suppressed by the unbranded Viva Tubes it came with.
The moral of the story? The tubes make the amp like the clothes make the man. Be aware though that you can't get by with putting lipstick on a pig.
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@lanx0003 I'm using a pair of Verity Audio Parsifal's, only the top section which includes the tweeter and midrange, not the bottom part which includes the woofers, I use a pair of Rel's to fill out the bottom end. These are around twenty years old and I am amazed at the sound. I bought on the cheap, best bargain ever. Verity never published the specs for the top part only, but I'm estimating the mid 90's, a nice easy load and a perfect match for the horn mono's. Any thought on a good signal tube? |
The following is an extract from a post discovered: " I recommend seeing if you can find a set GE 12DW7 and calling it a day. NOS supplies do seem to be drying up recently so getting a few spares is not a bad idea. In my very limited 12DW7 tube rolling experience, the GEs are slightly brighter than the JJs and Raytheon I have tried...the difference is barely discernible." |
@abnerjack Wow, those are nice speakers. I'm not sure which specific model you have, but both are claimed to extend down to 25 Hz (-3 dB) and have a sensitivity of about 89 dB. From what I've read, the 5-inch midrange driver covers an unusually wide frequency range—from about 150 Hz all the way up to around 5 kHz—because there is no electrical crossover between the midrange and tweeter (most speakers cross over between roughly 2.2 and 3 kHz). As a result, the midrange driver is likely to beam at higher frequencies, meaning its off-axis output is weaker than its on-axis output. With that in mind, how does the soundstage from the upper module perform when driven by a low-powered tube amplifier? At a 150 Hz crossover point, I think the REL subwoofer should integrate well with the system. However, I'd also be tempted to bi-amp the woofer section and see how much the overall system scales up, as well as how it compares with using the REL. My theory has always been that the speaker's original woofer integrates better with the rest of the system than an external subwoofer, particularly in terms of pace, timing, and texture.
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@pindac Thanks for finding that tube. This seems like a foolproof solution doesn't it. I'm shopping for them now. Any specific seller you like? |
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